Page 78 of He Loves Me Knot
He’s already closing himself off.
Moreover, he’d implied that he hadn’t seen their flirtation and kissing as anything real. He may as well have said they’d just been messing around.
And maybe that’s all it was to him.
He flirted with me once in London, then turned it all off like a spigot.
Maybe Callum was just that capable of emotional detachment. He’d proven over the years how indifferent he could be.
Hurt ebbed near her heart. “Yeah, I think so.”
ChapterNineteen
The insideof the car had gotten hot once again as they’d gotten closer to the coast, and Callum leaned into the rush of wind coming from the driver’s side window. He adjusted his sunglasses, frustration seeping through his fingertips as they got closer toLa Hacienda.
The last few days had been a whirlwind, none more frustrating than the night before when they’d gotten back to the room at Tabacón. Sleeping in a bed with Liddy again had been painful because he’d wanted to curl his arm around her waist and draw her into his body, which kept betraying him with images of their kiss in the hot springs.
And Sergio had clearly confused her.
He wanted to be angry with her but—fuck.She’d wanted that wanker first.
All right, so maybe he turned out not to be a wanker, but still . . .
And now that Liddy had learned Sergio was everything she’d hoped he would be and Elle would get the dress back, everything would go back to the way it had been. They still had to pretend they were dating, but that was easy enough.
A relationship with one of his employees wasn’t an option and this would all end neatly, with no messy emotional drama.
Just how I prefer it.
Except, as he glanced at Liddy, who looked unexpectedly tanned and tropical in the dress she’d bought from the hotel, her hair pushed back by her bandanna, but long and flowing over her shoulders, he wanted to stop the car and kiss her until she understood she should be considering a date with him and not that nitwit Sergio.
But if I have to convince her of that, then there’s nothing for me to say.
He would never beg a woman to choose him. Never.
And anyway, what was there for her to choose? They’d shared a kiss. A good one. But that didn’t mean anything else was on the table.
I don’t have feelings for her.
Not that Sergio is probably looking for anything either. He lives in Costa Rica.
Though he had come from London . . .
He had to stop thinking about this.
“I still feel like we should have gone to get the dress this morning,” Liddy said as they pulled into Samara’s main street.
Callum blinked away his convoluted internal debate, then flicked his gaze at her. The beach was right off the main road, glistening in the morning sun, and she looked like she belonged here. He, on the other hand, felt more awkward than ever in his touristy Pura Vida emblazoned T-shirt from La Fortuna.
“I have to go out that way anyway to pick up Isla this afternoon. It would honestly be a waste of four hours if we went now, and it would make more sense to arrive with Isla at this point. It’ll be fine. Now that we’ve rescued your passport, you may even arrange with the airline to have me pick it up for you if I take it.”
“You don’t think I’m going to get arrested for bringing pot into the country, do you?”
Callum shook his head. “They probably just confiscated it and gave Sergio a stern warning. Who knows? They let him out, and they wouldn’t have done that if they were worried about drug trafficking. Besides”—he nodded to the beach—“Samara may not be as big of a hippie, pot-smoking town as Tamarindo or some of the other beaches on this coast, but it has its fair share of lawbreakers. The police will let it slide as long as it’s not flagrant or excessive.”
“I’m still worried. And still going to kill Logan. What did you tell him when you asked him if he had left pot in the bag?”
Callum shrugged. “I asked him if that’s why he’d said his mum wanted to see the dress, he admitted it was, and I told him that Isla found the bag while she was packing. I explained we didn’t tell him we didn’t have it because we didn’t want his mum to be worried and asked for him to be discreet.”